Jeremih was in hot water before 50 Cent came along. The R&B crooner was reportedly in danger of being dropped from Def Jam after his sophomore album All About You failed to make an impact. But after the G-Unit henchman added his verse to “Down on Me” and the video with YouTube sensation Keenan Cahill went viral, he was given another shot.

“They was counting Jeremih out completely. He was already gon’ be dropped from Def Jam before [“Down on Me”],” 50 told Hot 97s Angie Martinez. “He was definitely gonna be in a position where he was getting dropped because the first week sales was really low on the record.”

Finding himself in a financially comfortable position, the hip-hop mogul decided to hop on Jeremih’s second single on the strength of his artistic abilities. “We did the song, I didn’t care. I was just looking at him as an artist and I said he sounds good, and I thought he was a dope artist, so I said I’ma do it,” he explained. “And we did the song, and then it took off. It’s been number one for what, five weeks now?”

Since then, the club banger cracked the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and even higher on the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. “It made sense to me from an artist’s perspective,” continued Fif. “What I have now, the luxury of being in a secure space financially, is me having the ability to make decisions based on just the art.”